All the host of heaven shall rot away: The coming judgment will involve not just people but all creation. This is a regular feature of prophetic imagery dealing with God’s judgment, especially in an apocalyptic setting (compare 13.9-10; 24.23). All the host of heaven may refer to the stars only (so New International Version, Bible en français courant), but it probably includes the sun and the moon also (so Good News Translation; see the comments on 24.21). New Jerusalem Bible says “the entire array of heaven.” The verb rot away pictures the heavenly bodies rotting and smelling bad like the corpses in verse 3. It is unusual to apply this verb to such objects, so Good News Translation says “crumble to dust,” which is helpful. Revised English Bible is similar with “crumble into nothing.”

And the skies roll up like a scroll means the sky will disappear like a scroll that someone rolls up and puts away in storage. This is the only place in the Old Testament where this imagery is used. Good News Translation expresses it clearly by saying “The sky will disappear like a scroll being rolled up.” For scroll see the comments on “book” at 29.11.

All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree: All their host refers to the same heavenly bodies as in the first line. The Hebrew verb rendered fall (two times) and falling generally refers to something drying and withering (see the comments on 1.30, where the same verb is translated “withers”). When leaves and fruit dry up on a tree, they fall off, so falling is implied. New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, New American Bible, and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh keep the idea of withering here (see also the example below). The falling heavenly bodies are compared first to leaves that wither and fall from a grapevine. For vine see the comments on “vineyard” at 1.8. Next they are compared to something that withers and falls from a fig tree. Revised Standard Version says it is leaves that fall from the fig tree, but in Hebrew it could be the fruit that falls. Both grapevines and fig trees lose their leaves and fruit in the autumn each year. So the imagery here implies that the fall of the heavenly objects is inevitable and certain. In languages where grapevines and fig trees are unknown, the two similes here may be rendered “like leaves or fruit falling from a tree.”

A translation example for this verse is:

• All the heavenly bodies will decay/crumble [into nothing],
the sky will be rolled up like a scroll;
everything in the sky will fall,
like leaves that have withered on a [grape]vine,
or like fruit that has dried up on a fig tree.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .